Since the polycrystalline silicon solar cell sector has come to a bottleneck hiking energy conversion rates and cost is increasing, monocrystalline silicon solar cells seem to have an advantage in terms of overall cost-effective ratio and thus global demand for the latter is likely to increase, according to Taiwan-based solar cell makers.
As polycrystalline solar cells have lower cost and efficiency decay than monocrystalline ones, the former have so far accounted for about 85% of PV systems installed globally, the sources indicated.
However, makers face bottlenecks improving energy conversion rates for polycrystalline solar cells from the current level of 17.6-17.8% to 18.0-18.5% and thus return on investment in such improvement is decreasing a great deal, the sources said. In comparison, it is relatively easier and entails less investment to hike energy conversion rats for monocrystalline solar cells from 18.5-19.0% currently to 20-21%, the sources indicated.
As shift in production from polycrystalline solar cells to monocrystalline models involves only small adjustments in manufacturing process, many Taiwan-based makers are expected to increase production of monocrystalline solar cells, the sources noted.
